Rainbow Swirl

I made a hat years ago following this pattern. I recently had the idea to make another one but with the stripes in different colors.

I didn’t have worsted weight yarn, so I ended up working with two strands of yarn. This gave me a chance to use even more colors! I worked it out to 7 gray/white stripes and 7 stripes in rainbow colors. I also had to borrow a pair of 5mm needles since I don’t usually work with this weight of yarn.

I modified the pattern a bit by changing the first row of each gray/white stripe to knit instead of purl. This way, the stripe transition looks smoother. I also did a provisional cast on, so that I could graft it together at the end.

For all the color stripes, I left an extra long tail. The tails were on the side that would become the top of the hat. After I grafted the beginning row to the last row and gathered the top, I used all those tails to knit a ball to replace the pompom.

I ended up making the brim a few rows shorter than the pattern. It seemed like a good length before binding off.

My next project is going to be something with fingering yarn. I love how this hat turned out, but it reminded me that I really prefer working with thinner yarn.